Huey Lewis thought he had a handle on it, but I’m willing to bet that the real power of love would be news to him.
The force of gravity on the surface of the sun is roughly 28 times that of Earth. That means if I weighed 100 kg on Earth, on the sun I would need to be able to lift about 2800 kg just to stand up. In other words, it would feel as if I weighed as much as a car. This effect has to do with the differences in mass between the two celestial bodies. Gravity is thought of as the most essential force in the formation of the physical universe and subsequently, in its ability to function with predictability and sustain itself. The force of gravity holds our world together and gives the planets, stars, and galaxies their form. It allows rain to fall and rivers to run to the sea. There could be no real understanding of the universe without it, yet, another power is greater still.
For inasmuch as we could not comprehend a universe devoid of gravity, there would be no reason for a universe if not for love. It can be said, then, that love is the force that gave birth to gravity, that love was the primary catalyst for the need for gravity in the first place. Gravity, as well as all of the physical universe, are therefore servants of love, merely doing its biding. Our own physical bodies are designed to be living sacrifices for the sake of love. There is no better illustration of this than, of course, Christ hung form a cross, pierced, as it were, for our iniquities – a body given for love. But as that body lay in the Earth, the spirit would rise and triumph over the physical world, giving hope for mankind for a final victory in the name of love! If this does not strike you as the most significant event in human history, then please, tell me something more substantial. At some point, I will describe how I feel that I know this to be true, but for now let us stick with the theory that it is.
Just in case anyone is unaware, I want to briefly describe the main differences between the way the major religions of the world view the personhood of God. Muslims believe in a single god called Allah. This is pretty straight forward. The Jewish faith is a little more divided on the subject. Most believe in a single God from what I gather, but some believe in the Christian version – a triune God. This is the idea that God is a single entity – one person, but this one person is made of three different and distinct identities – three different people (this happens to be my view). However, despite many Jews and all Christians believing in this version of God, tragically, very few actually understand how this is even possible. Lucky for you, I ‘m about to fill you in (and if you’re like me, it will blow your friggin mind)!
Up until I discovered this truth about God’s triune nature, the best way that it was described to me was that God was like an egg – one thing with three different parts. Although this sort of made sense to me, it seemed a bit over-simplistic. It made God out to be some sort of Mighty Morphin’ Power Ranger (if you don’t know what that is, sorry, you’ll have to look it up!). The main issue that I had with this idea was that once I cracked the egg and put the shell in the trash and separated the yolk from the egg whites, I could hardly call it an egg anymore. I didn’t see how that egg was still one thing. You can see a perfect example of this in the Bible in the Book of Mathew. Here Jesus was famously baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River during which time the Spirit of God descended on Him like dove and the Father called out “This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well-pleased,” 3:17. Here is an illustration of the three different entities of God in separate places doing different things. How in the world can they be one person?!?! So many people have asked that question, and finally, the answer.
Love is so many things, including a cheesy comic strip with fat naked kids, but I am going to break it down for you, hopefully, in a way that you have never heard. First of all I have to say that this concept is NOT MINE and I take NO credit for coming up with this idea. I first read about this in a book titled The Path of Perfect Love by a theologian named Diogenes Allen. I attended Louisiana State University after graduating high school and decided to enroll in a philosophy class. There were several very interesting concepts presented in that class, some of which I plan on discussing at some point, but overall I found the course to be lacking and told the instructor as much at the end of the semester. He recommended that I investigate a course in Christian philosophy, which I eagerly did. The following semester, in that course, I was introduced to Mr. Allen and his wonderful delineation of the nature of Love and subsequently, of God Himself. Now, I get to eagerly share this pearl of great value with you.
The truest manifestation of Love is what Mr. Allen termed “Perfect Love,” and I will do my best to summarize the concept here. The struggle that we most often face in life when dealing with other people is between our own wants, needs, and feelings, and theirs. Whether we know it or not, whether we intend to or not, our actions affect other people, and Love is our ability to recognize and care about the significance of these actions. At its most basic level, Love is the ability to empathize. Several animals, dogs in particular, have this capability to sense the needs of another being and tend to them. In this way too, Love is woven into the very nature of nature itself (although malice is particular to the human condition). But because human beings are of a higher nature, so too is the nature of our capacity to Love.
Perfect Love, according to Mr. Allen, can only be experienced to a small degree by human beings in very short moments. As we have noted, Love in its most rudimentary form is the ability to recognize the needs of another being and tend to them. As our awareness shifts from ourselves onto something or someone else, we are increasing our capacity to love that thing. Perfect Love, then is when our awareness is fully attached to another, thus completely abandoning our own sense of self. We have all seen those movie or television scenes when someone gets caught staring at someone else and they have to be snapped out of their trance. Those trance-like states are moments of Perfect Love, when everything about yourself is forgotten in favor of someone or something else. The same experience can be had at the foot of a mountain, or along a coast-line, during a storm or even a great tragedy like a plane crash. Any time you are fully aware of the state of the world around you absent of your own wants, needs, and desires is an experience of Perfect Love.
Of course we as human beings are unable to fully observe another person and truly forget ourselves which is why our experiences of Perfect Love are limited. We cannot read someone else’s thoughts (yet). We cannot know exactly where and how badly someone is hurting, physically or emotionally. We also cannot ignore our own disposition, but we can understand Love much better by understanding that the root of our ability to Love is our ability and willingness to observe and understand something or someone else, completely absent of our own motivations. Once we have inserted our own desires into the equation we have diminished our Love capacity. The opposite of Love is not hate. The opposite of Love is indifference – to carry on as if the other thing did not exist at all – to essentially not see it. On one end of the spectrum the self is the only consideration while anything else is non-existent; on the other end, the self is non-existent and the other thing is the only consideration, which brings me to the title of this article.
One of the most difficult concepts in all of Christianity to understand is the Holy Trinity. How can God be three persons and one person at the same time? Well, I just told you, but I shall elaborate. For as much as our abilities as human beings to understand one another are limited, God’s ability for comprehension is unlimited and complete. God is omniscient – all-knowing. This applies to all three persons – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Therefore, the capacity for perfect and complete understanding of each other grants them the ability to love each other perfectly all the time. God is also omnipotent, or all powerful. This grants each Person in the Trinity not only the capacity to understand each other perfectly, but also to fulfill each other completely. God is also omnipresent – He is everywhere, so He can suffer no separation like the egg from itself. Each Person can see through the eyes of the other. Love, then, is the very nature of God in all three Persons. God’s identity as one being is actually the compelling result of the nature of love. Love binds God to himself. Consequently, it is the force that binds Him to us, us to Him, and ourselves to one another. It’s the one thing we must give in order to have, and without it, we are like dust in a tomb.